Fully loaded new 27-inch iMac will cost over $4,200—before tax

Top model starts at $1,999, but those build-to-order options really add up.

Apple's newer, thinner iMacs are due to be released tomorrow, with the 21-inch models showing up in stores and shipping immediately, and 27-inch models shipping some time in December. While base model pricing and configuration options have been known ever since the new models were announced in October, Apple has not yet officially announced the pricing of any of the add-on options like video cards and extra storage, so potential purchasers haven't yet been able to nail down their total pocketbook impact.

However, earlier this week MacRumors posted news from an Apple reseller named Expercom, which reportedly contains the entire set of iMac build-to-order upgrade prices. According to that list, a fully loaded 27-inch iMac will cost an eye-watering $4,249, before tax:

Tossing in 6 percent for a guess at sales tax (obviously, this varies by state and even city) yields a grand total of $4,503.94 for an iMac with every single upgrade box checked. Hope you brought a second pair of underwear... preferably one stuffed with $100 bills.

It's easy to take one of those options off the table immediately—paying Apple $600 for 32GB of RAM is absolutely ludicrous. It's long been an axiom that buying RAM from a computer OEM is a fool's game, and Apple fits that more than most. A quick bit of Googling shows that the 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SODIMMs the iMac needs can be had for about $40 each, and so you can add 32GB yourself for $160-ish, and maybe a lot lower if you keep your eyes peeled for deals on RAM.

Forgoing this option saves us $600, but what about the SSD? There are several storage options for iMacs, including the much-discussed Fusion Drive, which welds together a large hard disk and smaller SSD into a single volume and tiers data between the two of them. According to the MacRumors price list, Fusion Drive adds $250 to the price of the storage (you can tack it onto the 27-inch iMac's base 1TB drive, or upgrade to a 3TB drive for $150 and then add Fusion Drive on top of that). However, annoyingly, the only all-SSD option is for the same 768GB SSD that Apple includes in its retina Macbook Pros. That carries a gut-punching $1,300 price tag. SSD prices are fluctuating around the holidays, but $1 per gigabyte is still reasonable for a consumer SSD with decent performance; this storage option, at a bit under $2 per gigabyte (and 65 percent of the cost of the entire rest of the computer before other options), is just too expensive for most buyers to reasonably consider.

As for the other two BTO options—the CPU and video card—it's a little murkier. If you're buying the iMac with an eye toward gaming, either natively or via Boot Camp, it's worth the extra scratch to at least get the video card upgrade. The Kepler-powered GeForce GTX 680MX is actually a pretty darn good video card, and the $150 premium is worth paying for the frame rate boost (though if you're focused primarily on gaming, you should just buy or part together a Windows box). The jump from i5 to i7 CPU will benefit you if you're doing CPU-intensive tasks like 3D rendering or video editing, but general desktop users won't notice the difference.

Still, if you need the add-ons, or if you just want to have the most expensive computer on the block, get ready to open your wallet wide. The iMac's difficult-to-open nature has in the past made adding things besides RAM difficult, and we have no idea yet how tough the new models will be to open up and modify. Previously, accessing the iMac's internals required removing the plastic screen cover with suction cups and then unscrewing the LCD and swinging it out of the way; the new laminated display doesn't have a removable front cover (the glass is bonded directly to the LCD panel), so the method for opening the thing isn't yet public. We'll have to wait on our buddies at iFixit to crack one open before we know for sure.

Both the 21-inch and 27-inch iMacs should go on sale tomorrow, with the larger model arriving in consumers' hands in December. Look for our review once we've had the chance to play with it.

Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Lee_Ars

190 Reader Comments

I see very often in the CPU forum that people recommend getting i5s over i7s, because i7s are (for most users) effectively the same processor as an i5. If that is indeed the case, why on earth would you pay $200 for a 300MHz speed bump?

I thought the i7 is the only option with hyperthreading. Am I wrong? How much does the help performance if I'm not wrong?

In my experiences, hyperthreading actually degraded performance, and turning it off was beneficial. But that's just with the exact software I ran; I'm sure there are use cases where hyperthreading is good.

Averaged across a wide range of software, on Ivy Bridge hyperthreading is worth about 25% of a CPU, so getting an i7 is like getting five cores rather than 4, at 3.4 rather than 3.2GHz.(I remain surprised that it is so low. I understand why it was so low on P4, where the individual threads were horribly under provisioned, but not why this is still the case on Ivy Bridge where I would have thought that on branchy integer code there is ample scope for hyperthreading to kick in at mispredicted branches and during dependency chains. I'd love to see a serious machine level analysis of this.)

Note, however, that if you use a lot of *well-written* FP or SSE intensive code hyperthreading is worth close to nothing because (simplifying) you have only one FP/SSE unit per core and if one thread is using that every cycle, the second thread can't also use it. The well-written proviso is important because this caution only matters if your code is already so efficient that it's using the FP/SSE every cycle.

I see very often in the CPU forum that people recommend getting i5s over i7s, because i7s are (for most users) effectively the same processor as an i5. If that is indeed the case, why on earth would you pay $200 for a 300MHz speed bump?

Also, on Newegg a 3.4GHz Ivy Bridge i5 is $80 less than a 3.5GHz i7.

In the absence of info about the power budgets of these chips, this information is worthless.

Apple has no interest in putting 120W Ivy Bridges in iMacs, and it is the high power chips that are cheapest.

Um, the iMac continues to act as a monitor even when it's guts are outdated.

So when a piece dies you are left with a functioning monitor... Exactly how does that help you?

You plug it into your new Mac Mini and use it to see what's going on.

OK... so you just swallow the loss of a whole machine? You don't send it out to get fixed..?

If it's within the three-year Applecare, you get it fixed. Afterwards, it's too old to bother with anyway so, you use it as a monitor for your new Mac Mini.

If it doesn't break (which is the most likely situation), you sell it on Ebay and buy a new iMac.

So in addition to recommending giving Apple even more money for an extended warranty, you're rationalizing their policy of forcing you to buy new product from them when your old stuff breaks as a handy way to get extra use out of said broken product. Instead of, you know, being able to fix it in the first place...but then you wouldn't be back in the store spending more money. I guess you really can spin anything.

I recognize that there are some disadvantaged people who don't have enough free cash to fully enjoy the Mac ecosystem. Just like there are some people who are so poor they can't afford membership in a decent golf club, or a couple of nice vacations each year.

Maybe there ought to be a government program to help the working poor get Macs of their own. Until then, they'll have to settle for Windows PCs.

...I NEVER buy prebuilt systems. They are usually a rip off. Yes even the "bargain" models they push. It's always cheaper to build your own system from the ground up. Apple knows this is true which is why they refuse to allow Mac clones to be made. Apple enjoys a hardware monopoly which is hilarious to me. If MS built computers and pulled the same shit congress would have MS's balls for breakfast and their ass for Lunch.

Yes, you can do much better buying and building your own, but you have to have attained a certain amount of knowledge and experience in order to do so. (My last OEM-built box was delivered in 1995.) Apple has never been interested in "knowledgeable, experienced" customers of the kind who know how to ask all of the pertinent questions and ask for the right things, though. I always use first-tier components, however, that are more expensive but are generally supported with better drivers and warranties ROOB than I'd see if I simply let "cheap" guide me. I'm especially glad not to have cantankerous old Apple sitting between me and my hardware.

As to Microsoft, what's even more entertaining is the fact that it wouldn't be Congress jumping on the company--at least not at first. Before that happens, Microsoft's competitors would form a long, lobbyist line to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of any Congressman who will listen--and then a few will bite purely out of political considerations for themselves. Congress still doesn't know the difference between a ram chip and a mouse, imo. The irony of those Microsoft competitors complaining to Congressmen about Microsoft's success is that, among the complainers, Apple would be prominent--and prominent while suing other competitors at the same time, no less. Apple reeks of irony--which is what makes the company interesting, I suppose.

But the really amazing thing about this whole, strange, iMac saga is the fact that an iMac is an all-in-one design of the kind that virtually went extinct twenty years ago! Trouble with your monitor--take the whole computer in. Trouble with your 'puter--take the monitor in, too (as if you had a choice.) If you're an insect, the iMac offers spacious working room inside its, uh, enclosure. Ugh. I really doubt we'd do very well trying to roll our own all-in-one. But then again, among those of us who can competently build our own, who on earth would want to?

Well the only issue I have with your comment is your claim that you need to know hardware to have a custom built machine. This is not true. There are plenty of small shops out there who will build a PC for you and not rape you. I build PC's for people who view what I do as something akin to magic. I do it because I enjoy doing it and don't usually charge for more than just the actual cost of the parts unless it's some odd ball build that requires me to put in a butt load of time.

the biggest problem with this is the all in one formfactor. if any component breaks you have to replace the whole thingas others said you are paying for the brand, if building yourself is an option you can save at least half of the price (even with a price of monitor that wont be rendered useless when the system is outdated http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... noteSearch)

What component do you expect to break? The whole thing is solid state except for the HD, and if that dies you can boot off a USB3 external drive.

Yes, in theory a variety of things COULD happen. The fans COULD die. The graphics card COULD overheat. The WiFi daughterboard COULD become unseated. But the actual fact is that these are REALLY rare occurrences. If you're going to spend your life obsessing over things that could happen but are pretty damn unlikely, how do you move around the world? There are deadly cars everywhere, possible lightening strikes, dangerous dogs. Heck, you could get TB from the breath of the guy next to you. But don't stay in the house either --- that could burn down, or he growing toxic mold that gives you cancer.

I have a 2006 iMac with what appears to be an overheating video card (glitches and crashes in the summer, not winter). Amortized over it's 6 year lifespan then I will have spent $220 a year on it, $200 if it makes it to next summer (which is what I expect).

I will then upgrade to a refurbished iMac for the same price and expect to get another 7 years of life out of it, with the added bonus that when it is obsolete I will be able to buy a cheaper Mac mini (or PC) and plug it into the iMac and retain it as a useful monitor.

I've got that same late 2006 iMac (mine is the 20"), and it has those same GPU overheating issues - it is apparently not uncommon. Do your best to blow out any obvious dust clogs, not just from the top and bottom vents but the circular one by the AC plug - I had a big dustball there removing which reduced my internal temps by many degrees. I use things like smcFanControl and Temperature Monitor to bump the fan speeds up - if I keep the GPU temp below 50C I'm crash-free, and it is only if it stays at 55+ that it tends to crash out.

Um, the iMac continues to act as a monitor even when it's guts are outdated.

So when a piece dies you are left with a functioning monitor... Exactly how does that help you?

You plug it into your new Mac Mini and use it to see what's going on.

OK... so you just swallow the loss of a whole machine? You don't send it out to get fixed..?

If it's within the three-year Applecare, you get it fixed. Afterwards, it's too old to bother with anyway so, you use it as a monitor for your new Mac Mini.

If it doesn't break (which is the most likely situation), you sell it on Ebay and buy a new iMac.

So in addition to recommending giving Apple even more money for an extended warranty, you're rationalizing their policy of forcing you to buy new product from them when your old stuff breaks as a handy way to get extra use out of said broken product. Instead of, you know, being able to fix it in the first place...but then you wouldn't be back in the store spending more money. I guess you really can spin anything.

If you're such a hardware stud that you can build your own hackintosh, why are you so scared of opening an iMac and fixing it yourself? You do know it's possible, right? Go to iFixIt and see a guide, with photos and everything, for how to pop it open. The only unusual tools you will need are the suction cups, which are only $15, and a McGyver like you can probably dispense with those and use a toilet plunger to do the job.

I have in front of me a 1977 ad for an Apple ][ computer. The price (fully-loaded, which meant 48K of memory), was $2638. Mind you, this came with no external storage, and you needed to provide a TV or monitor for output. So at minimum you were looking at $30 for a cassette player and $250-$500 for a monitor or color TV set (so about $3000). Inflation adjusted, that would be about $11,000 in today's dollars. So a pretty good deal, even if fully loaded!

Look, there is no doubt that you could easily spec out a machine with similar specs to what they are offering, or even better than that (I mean seriously, you can get a 1TB OCZ PCI-e Revodrive for $400 which is stupidly fast) for significantly less money. Not going to argue that at all.

The question is: Can you build one which essentially fits into the back of a monitor, with all the engineering behind it to reduce a mainboard down to something with the square area of a postcard? That handles the thermal output without overheating? With a retina display? And a warranty?

There's a lot of R&D which goes into that type of all-in-one design which presents a very high upfront cost as opposed to the general all-purpose parts you can buy off Newegg which will fit into your generic box and connects to a nice monitor. That money will need to be recouped through higher pricing because of the specialized hardware for the manufacturer to break even and/or make a profit - and it's done in this case through the upgrade options for the machine in question.

I'm also not saying that one is necessarily better than another - both have their place - and it's certainly possible to build a completely rock-solid system that will run and run well problem-free for years for yourself or your relatives. Remember what most of those 'relative in trouble' service calls really are for: rarely are they actual -hardware- failures, more often than not its -user- errors. Picking good, high-quality parts makes the chances of failure much less (although as we all well know, not impossible).

So, don't begrudge Apple the chance to make money on what is really is somewhat of a niche device (especially with laptops/tablets dominating sales) with limited sales potential. If people want to buy it, and load it up - that's their choice and Apple feels they can make money on it, more power to them. Likewise, don't hate on the WinTel boxes, they can provide as much performance (actually more because of more cooling capabilities) for significantly less money, and have their place for those who want more control over their hardware with the chance to upgrade to what (and when) their budget allows.

What is the point of this article? It seems to me that you are either implying that the price being charged is excessively high (in which case a reasonable journalist would have made comparisons to other comparably equipped machines), or you are sharing with us the fact that you just figured that by adding lots of high-end options to computer equipment things can get expensive (how about giving us a little credit).

This type of article should never have gotten past the editors, and certainly is not up to the standards I have come to expect from Ars.

I approved this article as Managing Editor, and if you'll look a bit closer, this is posted in our Staff Blog. We're not treating this as "news," but as something we found interesting.

We're going to take a look at what pimped-out machines from other OEMs cost, too.

If the "Staff Blog" posts end up on the same front page as every other "news" story...then how is your audience supposed to know to treat them differently? (Besides to first read the tags or whatever.)Maybe have a non-news page, and leave the front page to just news.

Or maybe they thought some of the people on their site could, you know, read. But yeah, big red blinking letters, or a totally different site, yeah, those would work too.

Why are there so many whiny b1tches on Ars lately?

Don't like the purpose of the article? Hate Apple? Then read the headline, and move on to the next one. Why come and comment that you don't like the article?

Do you go to your grocery store and complain to the clerk that they are selling Cheerios and you don't like Cheerios? If you don't like Cheerios, don't buy them! Same thing goes for the news.

I don't really care that much about Android, so you know what I do? I skip lots of the Android articles. Imagine that.

Maybe they should add all their Twitter feeds to the front page too...you know, dinner plans are just as important.

That's a retarded example; stop being stupid on purpose.

This is article is about an Apple product that many Ars readers use, and many of the remaining readers like to talk about if only to say they hate it. One way or the other, it's of interest to the audience. And it has four pages of comments so people are definitely clicking on it. Their dinner plans wouldn't get this much response.

the biggest problem with this is the all in one formfactor. if any component breaks you have to replace the whole thingas others said you are paying for the brand, if building yourself is an option you can save at least half of the price (even with a price of monitor that wont be rendered useless when the system is outdated http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... noteSearch)

The real story is the 680MX upgrade is just $200. A few weeks ago I looked at an Alienware machine with the same 675 to 680 upgrade path, and they were charging about $450 (from memory). The costs for this part have dropped dramatically. That's great news for anyone who wants to use their iMac for games or GPU programming.

It could be done. Just have to look. Not exactly 768 GB but you get the idea.

No actually I don't get the idea. The Intel is 600gB for $869 which is $1.45 per gigabyte. The Apple upgrade is $1.69 per gigabyte. For a whooping 16.5% increase. While there is no doubt the intel is less expensive I would hardly call it real cheap in comparison.

I have a 2006 iMac with what appears to be an overheating video card (glitches and crashes in the summer, not winter). Amortized over it's 6 year lifespan then I will have spent $220 a year on it, $200 if it makes it to next summer (which is what I expect).

I will then upgrade to a refurbished iMac for the same price and expect to get another 7 years of life out of it, with the added bonus that when it is obsolete I will be able to buy a cheaper Mac mini (or PC) and plug it into the iMac and retain it as a useful monitor.

I've got that same late 2006 iMac (mine is the 20"), and it has those same GPU overheating issues - it is apparently not uncommon. Do your best to blow out any obvious dust clogs, not just from the top and bottom vents but the circular one by the AC plug - I had a big dustball there removing which reduced my internal temps by many degrees. I use things like smcFanControl and Temperature Monitor to bump the fan speeds up - if I keep the GPU temp below 50C I'm crash-free, and it is only if it stays at 55+ that it tends to crash out.

Apple doesn't have a monopoly on hardware. Apple hardware is hardly different than PC hardware from a technical point of view.

Macs are Apple's entry into the PC market. Apple's share of the PC market is miniscule.

Your blather about "monopoly" is absurd.

They don't? So that court case where they sued vendors who were trying to offer Apple users an alternate CHOICE didn't happen?

Of course it did, but the lawsuit wasn't about the HW; Apple owns the trademark and copyright over the OS (which is how they won against Psystar).

Quote:

Apple is forcing people to buy THEIR computers if they wish to use Apple's OS.

Apple wrote the OS and have legal ownership of it. That's what copyright is supposed to do. If you wish to create your own HW that is 100% compatible with their OS, you are free to do so, but you cannot modify the OS in order to do so (which is what Psystar did)

Quote:

Where in the case of Windows and Linux, the only other OS's around, users are free to buy from MANY different vendors. When you are the ONLY person allowed to sell machines which can run the Apple OS that is called a MONOPOLY.

No one else has created compatible HW. Psystar had to modify the code (illegal) and then host said code on a server to install onto their PCs (also illegal).

If you create a PC with a custom motherboard containing the HW necessary to authenticate the OS install, you are free to sell it (assuming you didn't do something illegal like copy Apple's code). Compaq, after all, reverse engineered the IBM PC BIOS to create IBM compatible PCs.

No one has yet stepped up to do the same to create Apple compatible PCs. So far they've only modified the SW, which is illegal.

Jeebus, it's so annoying when someone comments on how they can build an equivalent computer for cheaper than what apple sells.

That's kind of granted.

I can go buy the parts, shove them in to a case, and boom. Bad ass rig. I do it all the time.

And yes, comparably specced parts piecemeal can be had for cheaper than buying an iMac.

But here's what you don't get when you buy a mac.

1 - Support. Something breaks on my computer, I google it and figure it out myself (one reason I don't build computers for friends - support can suck it) With a mac I take it in and let a Genius fix it, or Apple gives me a new one. And I think this is the point lots of computer builders don't get. Most people who buy a Mac don't want to have to know how to fix it. I like tinkering, but just about everyone else I know doesn't.

2 - Design. I can build any ugly ass shit box PC that has great specs, and throws up impressive numbers in GeekBench and Cinebench. But have you ever taken an iMac apart? The people that engineer those things are artists. I never had more respect for the engineering that goes into a Mac then when I started building my own.

3 - Eye Candy (see above). The G5 and G4 case mods I have done I love to display in my office. Because they are unique, impressive, excellent designs. Same goes for iMacs and Mac Minis as well. You want that out on the desk because it looks bad ass. My current rig sits under my desk because it just holds the guts of my computer together. Agree or disagree with form over function, but apple makes some great designs.

So seriously, drop it already. You can't compare a computer you build with a Mac. They aren't on the same field. People who build their computers are worlds different than people who buy Macs.

The only thing I will concede is for Mac Pros. Those things innards sucks and Apple should be bitch slapped for continuing to sell them.

It could be done. Just have to look. Not exactly 768 GB but you get the idea.

No actually I don't get the idea. The Intel is 600gB for $869 which is $1.45 per gigabyte. The Apple upgrade is $1.69 per gigabyte. For a whooping 16.5% increase. While there is no doubt the intel is less expensive I would hardly call it real cheap in comparison.

Then you are missing the point. That is just the hard drives. Now include all the other custom parts and the saving kicks in huge. Trust me, I can build a better system for cheaper no matter what any manufacturer does. If we could install OSX and have it work with custom rigs Apple would be shit out of luck. The one and only reason that they can do shit like this is that they don't let us install OSX on any rig we want. Which is lame.

Did the same thing on dell.com and it will cost me $6,312.56 before tax...

Exactly

Try building a system yourself with the same specs. Dell, Apple, and all the other name brand systems gouge their customers.

If I buy a Dell, it won't need to be some glued together glorified laptop. I can tweak the configuration to avoid the steep cost of unnecessarily bleeding edge components. I also won't have to ditch my current monitor.

I might even be able to upgrade it in 2017 if the GPU seems a little dated.

I recognize that there are some disadvantaged people who don't have enough free cash to fully enjoy the Mac ecosystem. Just like there are some people who are so poor they can't afford membership in a decent golf club, or a couple of nice vacations each year.

I can managed to do all of these things while spending less, getting more, and actually having something of quality. How irresponsible you are with someone elses money will only impress barristas.

1) Support - which means more than warranty. If this is for a business, the very time it takes to sort out what is inside a white box PC, who to contact for support, what the warranty terms would be, who would fix it, etc. are all very real costs. There is an issue of accountability that serious usage would require. I expect that Apple will fix Apple equipment within the warranty or extended warranty period, or provide me with a replacement. Your white box PC might have parts that are no longer readily available. Which means potential software updates, change in behavior, etc. Simple things like does the drive flush it's cache when it said it did? Do the drivers work? Even the act of figuring out which is inside of each machine across 10 or 500 custom white box builds is a pain in the ass to manage. If you didn't custom build yourself, can your builder just go to his inventory and drop another equivalent system in your desk? With an OEM system, I expect that I can move/image the disks and with no change in software, will just work.

On the other hand, if you are building 500 or 10,000 machines at once, there are big reasons to do custom build, like large data centers. But most professionals (one person web/graphic designer, 250 person manufacturing company, etc.) do not buy in quantities like that.

3) Performance - modern CPUs dynamically adjust to heat conditions. While OEMs including Apple do some issues with manufacturing, does your white box build PC properly cool? If you look at a number of case reviews (which I've been doing lately for a custom build), you'll notice a large variance in cooling capacity. So you can get away with some very cheap cases and power supplies, but you get what you paid for in terms of cooling and efficiency. So it is easily possible to outperform OEM's in terms of both cooling and efficiency - but you have to factor that in for both evaluating system build cost as well as time to evaluate your custom build results.

4) Getting a system built properly is not just the time to assemble the system. That's before you even really talk about software issues. If your time is free, cheap, or otherwise unaccounted (ie. it's fun and so let's not talk about it), then sure, have at it - but don't pretend that there isn't an adjustment for it when comparing to an OEM build.

5) Certification - For each design/build, OEMs have to do things like vibration testing, RF emissions testing, accounting for recycling, etc. Do you know if your custom built white box PC qualifies for FCC class A or class B? Is it lead free? BFR free? PVC free? Mercury free?

You personally may not care for the above. I get that. I've hand built many systems in similar situations. Custom built might be the right thing for you. However, you cannot just sum NewEgg system parts prices to OEM builds and call it equivalent.

The processor and video upgrades don't seem so unreasonable to me. The i7 may only have a small improvement in clock speed, but it does have a somewhat bigger cache and supports multi-threading. The tests on cpubenchmark.net show a "PassMark" score of 9452 for the i7-3770 and a score of 6602 for the i5-3470 (assuming that I'm right about the processors Apple is using). The 680MX is also a huge upgrade in performance. Of course, many people don't need to run heavily threaded CPU intensive tasks or heavy graphics intensive tasks, so the upgrades are obviously not worth it for everyone.

The memory and disk upgrades do seem way-overpriced. I will be buying a fully loaded system except for the RAM because I use my computer for work and the speed-up in disk intensive tasks is worth it to me. Luckily, I can still add my own RAM and will be buying 16GB from OWC for $90 which will give me a total of 24GB.

For $4k, you can go to NCIX and get a system with a 3770k i7, 32 GB of ram, a much more powerful GTX 680, dual 512 GB SSDs in RAID 0, a 3 TB backup HDD, 850W power supply, a high-capacity air cooler for the CPU (Noctua NH-D14) and a 27" IPS dell monitor at 2560x1440 (or a couple of 1920x1200 IPS displays, depending on what you need).

The iMac will not entice any desktop builders, and certainly is not even close to being considered a "good deal". Perhaps there are some expensive systems that can be had at dell or wherever, but system builders don't go there either. Too much money, too little power.

I work as a computer tech and so get to not only work on but use Macs and Windows based PCs. I just don't understand why people pay so much money for iMacs and Macbooks. When you compare the last couple versions of OSX and Windows 7 the differences in functionality are minimal with give and take on both sides, usability is pretty good for both OS's, but the Macs are so much more expensive. Build quality is good of course and they typically use high quality panels but you can find that stuff in the Wintel space if you look hard enough.

Do you use OSX regularly? Just curious. I use OSX at home, windows for work. I am never more frustrated then when I am on windows, and I know it pretty well. Not so much in troubleshooting, but just in the general way to OS works and responds. 7 is a great improvement over XP, but I feel OSX alone is worth the price of admission for buying a mac. If they licensed OSX for OEM sale I would be in heaven.

I work as a computer tech and so get to not only work on but use Macs and Windows based PCs. I just don't understand why people pay so much money for iMacs and Macbooks.

Let's rephrase your sentence a little.

"I don't understand why people pay for more expensive things."

Then let us make it a question.

"Why do people pay for more expensive things?"

Quote:

When you compare the last couple versions of OSX and Windows 7 the differences in functionality are minimal with give and take on both sides, usability is pretty good for both OS's, but the Macs are so much more expensive.

People aren't purchasing solely for the OS. You're comparing the plumbing of a house to the house itself. The OS is an internal component, like the CPU or HDD, that allows the device to function.

It is the device itself you need to compare it too.

Quote:

Build quality is good of course and they typically use high quality panels but you can find that stuff in the Wintel space if you look hard enough.

That's the problem isn't it? It's only been recently that you could find similar PCs.

So to answer your question, "Why do people pay for more expensive things?"

Note that, as per your point of comparing OS X to Windows 7, there is no aspect of Windows 7 that positively affects those 7 points. OS X is no more, nor less reliable, or functional, than Windows 7, making the comparison pointless.

And you get features not present in Windows 7 such as free iMessage to all iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, as well as FaceTime video chat, and AirPlay video streaming to Apple TV.

the biggest problem with this is the all in one formfactor. if any component breaks you have to replace the whole thingas others said you are paying for the brand, if building yourself is an option you can save at least half of the price (even with a price of monitor that wont be rendered useless when the system is outdated http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... noteSearch)

What component do you expect to break? The whole thing is solid state except for the HD, and if that dies you can boot off a USB3 external drive.

Yes, in theory a variety of things COULD happen. The fans COULD die. The graphics card COULD overheat. The WiFi daughterboard COULD become unseated. But the actual fact is that these are REALLY rare occurrences. If you're going to spend your life obsessing over things that could happen but are pretty damn unlikely, how do you move around the world? There are deadly cars everywhere, possible lightening strikes, dangerous dogs. Heck, you could get TB from the breath of the guy next to you. But don't stay in the house either --- that could burn down, or he growing toxic mold that gives you cancer.

Actually ... for this device, I would worry a little about things breaking. The display is apparently being made with a new process and is having yield issues. Anytime something is new like this, there is higher chance of defective devices. The units are under warranty (and any issues will probably happen early on), but I wouldn't want to be without my computer for the time it takes Apple to fix it.

I actually bought a Samsung 30" monitor four years ago, and that thing was such a disaster. It broke four times during its 3-year warranty. Every time I shipped it back, they would fix the problem but not the root cause, and it would break again after 6-8 months. Sure enough, right after the warranty expired, it broke again. I screamed at Samsung saying that they shipped me a defective device and never fixed it properly, but they basically told me that it is out of warranty and they weren't interested in doing anything about it.